(born Niko Pirosmanashvili; May 5, 1862-1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter. Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a pleasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.  Related Paintings of Niko Pirosmanashvili :. | Threshing floor | Molokani Carousing | A Shepherd with His Flock | Kakhetian Epos - Alasan Valley | A Lamb and a Laden Easter Table with Angels Flying in the Background |
Related Artists:
Geertgen Tot Sint Jans
Netherlandish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1460-1490 Geertgen tot Sint Jans is also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, or Gerrit Gerritsz.[citation needed] Alternative spellings of his first name are Gheertgen, Geerrit, and Gheerrit, where G(h)eertgen is the diminutive form of G(h)eerrit. Presumably, he was born in Leiden, then in the Burgundian Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire, around the year 1465. The assignment of Leiden as his birth place is traceable to a 17th century print by Jacob van Matham. There is no known archival evidence for this claim by Jacob van Matham. The modern acceptance of Leiden as Geertgen's birth place is roughly traceable to Johann Kessler's dissertation of 1930. Probably, Geertgen was a pupil of Albert van Ouwater, who was one of the first oil painters in the northern Low Countries. Both painters lived in the city of Haarlem. Geertgen was attached to the monastery of the Knights of Saint John, for whom he painted an altarpiece. Although Geertgen was not a member of the Order of Saint John, his last name "tot Sint Jans" was derived from the order's name and means "unto Saint John". Geertgen died in Haarlem, then the Habsburg Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire, around the year 1495, when he was approximately 28 years old. He was buried in the monastery of the Knights of Saint John. Modern scholars have attempted to calculate the artist's death date with the information from The Painting-Book (Middle Dutch: Het Schilder-Boeck) by Karel van Mander, published in 1604. There are some archival traces that suggest he may in fact have lived into the 16th century.
Thomas Pollock Anshutz
(1851-1912) was an American painter and teacher. He studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and moved to Philadelphia in 1875 to study under Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. He entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876, becoming Eakins's assistant there in 1878, and his successor in 1886. He later studied in Paris at the Academie Julian, 1892-93
SPADA, Lionello
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1576-1622 Italian painter, active mainly in Emilia. His signature was an L placed across a sword [Ital. spada=sword]. His work shows influence of the grand manner of the Carracci, as in The Burning of Heretical Books (San Domenico, Bologna), and of Caravaggio's naturalism, seen in dramatic religious and genre scenes such as The Way to Calvary (Parma). In his late works his manner became softer and warmer under Correggio's influence. An example is The Marriage of St. Catherine (Parma).